6 Very Creepy Things You Probably Don't Know You're Eating

What's for lunch? Chances are, your meal is full of things you'd never imagine could be edible. From scary chemicals to ingredients derived from bugs (gross!), see the crazy things that are hiding in your foods and beverages—as well as the very non-edible things where you'll also find them. (Take our advice and finish your food before you give this list a gander.)

What you're eating:

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

You actually might be out of the woods with this one. Up until this week, many of Coca-Cola and PepsiCo's products included brominated vegetable oil, which is also a chemical used as a flame retardant in plastics. (No word, however, on any other off-brand cola or sports drinks.)

What it's also in:

Most Popular

Your vintage furniture kind of loses its curb appeal when you learn it's full of nasty ish. But many foam-based things—mattresses, couches, and the like—that were produced before 2005 likely contain bromine, a component of the very chemical that Coca-Cola is finally nixing from their drinks. While it's banned from use in foods in other countries, our FDA says its safe—even though it's been linked with all sorts of serious health issues, including paralysis in one case.

What you're eating:

When you dig into many foods that are dyed red—for example, commercially sold red velvet cake, strawberry flavored yogurt, and jelly donuts—chances are, you're also ingesting a chemical called carmine.

What it's also in:

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

Yep, you read that right. What better way to get red color than from red bugs? Yum. Unless you have a bug allergy it's not particularly bad for you, but it's still pretty gross—and the real issue is that because it comes from something natural, until very recently, food companies didn't technically have to list it as an ingredient by FDA standards. (Dannon found itself in hot water last summer when it was found that they like to use carmine to give their strawberry yogurt a nice pink hue.) So if someone did have a bug allergy, and just saw that their yogurt had "natural ingredients," they could get very sick. The FDA has since enforced stricter labeling, but beetles in our donuts? No thanks.

What you're eating:

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

Eat your veggies? Well, if they're GMO corn and soy products, you're in for a not-so-fun treat: a chemical called glyphosate.

What it's also in:

Most Popular

You've probably heard of the Dirty Dozen, and this is a pretty good reason to look into it further: Non-organic veggies are often laden with residue from weed-killer. If you're thinking, "Hmm, herbicide...that can't be good for me," yes, you're right! It's not! It's been shown to be deadly to human cells—and particularly dangerous for fetuses.

Just a heads up, but this is pretty unpleasant: Castoreum isn't sourced from any 'ol part of the beaver—it's secreted from the anal glands. Yeeeah. The animals apparently use it to mark their territories, and it smells like vanilla, hence the usage in our food. (Couldn't we just use, um, actual vanilla?)

What you're eating:

It sounds like the perfect meal: You have your hearty bowl of chili, you topped it with some pre-shredded cheese (it's too easy!), and you just cracked open a bottle of beer. But hold up! You're digging into a smorgasbord of silicon dioxide.

What it's also in:

Silicon dioxide, or silica, is actually the same thing as that sand we shake from our bathing suits after a long day at the beach. It's found in all sorts of things, from table salt to beer, wine, and soups. But believe it or not, there's nothing that shows that it's bad for us in the small amounts we ingest (it's a mineral, after all)—it's just a little odd to think about, that's all.

What you're eating:

Skim milk, ranch dressing, mayo, and marshmallows—they all share a lovely shade of white, thanks to something called titanium dioxide.

What it's also in:

Just like skim milk would be blue without it (really!), white paint and sunscreen also get their coloring from titanium dioxide. Reports on its safety are conflicting—but naysayers argue that it could be a carcinogen and dangerous for our lungs.